Nick Wilde Becomes an Ant Hill
by ham on italian bread w cheese
Summary: In this exhilarating installment in the Zootopia franchise, Nick Wilde becomes an ant hill. Judy Hopps checks up on him. Finnick is in there too, somewhere.


Judy hopped up to Nick's doorstep and stopped, sizing up the door before even thinking of what was behind it. Apartment 225 looked the same as it ever did, same white paint job peeling on the corners, same yellow knob, same mysterious stain under the number plate that Nick never seemed to get around to cleaning. She almost expected it to look different, as if Nick's sudden week-long disappearance would cause it to fall into even further disrepair. It looked the same as ever, and even that innocuous fact worried Judy. She wanted some sign, some explanation as to what had happened. Then again, wasn't that why she was here? Snapping out of her reverie, she raised a paw and gave three quick raps on the door and waited for a response. When there was none, she let out an exasperated sigh and tried the knob, finding it to be unlocked. Judy was surprised at this, as Nick always seemed to be a stickler for these things, hardly even leaving his computer unlocked when he went to the bathroom. Her concern and curiosity rising, Judy pushed open the door and stepped in, shutting it behind her.

The first thing she noticed was the stench, hitting her like a wave as soon as she set foot in the dingy apartment. It was sickeningly sweet, like rotting coconuts or rancid butter, with the subtle yet unmistakable odour of bug spray underneath. The second was that the entire apartment was almost entirely dark, with all the curtains drawn and the only source of light being the hall lamps shining in from under the door. Judy flailed for a light switch with one hand while attempting to pull her shirt over her nose with the other, managing to find one after a few jostled coats and a close encounter with the thermostat.

With the lights on, the apartment's smell was explained in one moment of ugly clarity, so much so that Judy almost wanted to turn them back off. The floor was littered with the remains of food boxes and wrappers that had been torn to shreds, along with the rotting remains of whatever had been in them. There didn't seem to be any particular pattern to what food items had been picked, with an entire package of chocolate pudding having been dumped onto the floor right next to a bag of turkey jerky. The only thing linking them together at this point was the clear evidence of rot, with a thick blanket of mold coating most of it and what must have been entire colonies of ants swarming over the rest of it. Judy gagged at the sight, struggling not to erupt into a fit of dry heaving. As if the place were reacting to her presence, a loud crash reverberated throughout the apartment, coming from the direction of Nick's bedroom. Doing her best to step over the debris, Judy made her way towards it, pushing open the door.

On the bed at the far end of the room rested the body of what was once Nick Wilde, now twisted beyond recognition. His body had grown thick with pus-filled flesh and fat, his arms and legs sinking into himself until only his paws could be seen poking out. Everything that could be seen of him was red and inflamed, showing even through his fur, which was now spread thin with how much mass he had gained. The most horrible aspect of him, however, had to be the holes. Hundreds of tiny holes covered his body, covering him like freckles, without a single trickle of blood leaking out of any of them; it was as if they were supposed to be there, like his body had adapted to them. Judy, in a moment of odd calm as she processed everything she was seeing, wondered what had caused them. As if answering her question, a single ant crawled out of one of them, scuttling onto the floor and crawling towards her. It climbed up onto her shoe with surprising dexterity, continuing onto her pant leg and nearly reaching her waist before she noticed it, brushing it away with disgust.

As soon as she did so, Nick let out a low gurgle from wherever his face was buried in those folds of flesh, the first noise Judy had heard him make since she entered the room. Her attention was drawn back to him as he made the sound, and she instantly knew why he made it, as she saw what must have been thousands of ants pouring out of the holes in his flesh en masse. They went down from his body onto the floor before going towards her, creating a thick, black, moving carpet on the ground that was closing in on her. Panicking, Judy spun around on her heels and tried to run out of the room, only to be faced with another army of ants marching towards her from behind. They must have formed from the parts of the colony out to get food, somehow alerted to her presence along with the rest of them. With nowhere to go, Judy simply froze in place as the ants began to swarm over her, letting out a shrill scream as they started chewing holes into her flesh.

Finnick stomped down the hall of the apartment complex, making his way towards the door marked 225. That was where his partner, Nick Wilde, lived, who had not shown head nor tail around the city for over a week and had also not been returning any of Finnick's calls. Finnick had decided to take matters into his own hands and give Nick a piece of his mind, shoving the key Nick had given him into the door's lock only to discover that it was already unlocked. Too frustrated to think about the implications, he tugged his key back out and flung open the door.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I ADDED THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE TO MAKE THE WORD COUNT OVER 1,000 BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY TO CLICK ON IT THAT WAY


End file.
